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Page 286
innocent reasons for that, or I might have misread him."
"I do not think you did, for I read his face the same way. And I know full well I cannot move openly against him now." Suddenly, in the midst of her thought, she laughed and laid her lips on Ian's shoulder. "If I had not been thinking of other matters, I might have seen his disaffectionif it is disaffection and not some other troublesooner. Then I could have refused his oathbut my mind was elsewhere."
"Am I to blame for that?"
"Assuredly. If you were hateful to me, or nothing to me, would I not have applied myself to business to drive you from my thoughts? As it was, Sir Peter tried to speak to metwice, I thinkbut I put him off and I cannot remember a word he said."
Whereupon, quite reasonably, instead of blaming his wife for her carelessness, Ian kissed her soundly, and Alinor's prediction came true. They stopped talking. Ian thought no more of the subject of Sir Peter that night. His application to his new business of being a husband was too intense to leave room for worrying about another man's affairs. However, the ominous note in Alinor's flat statement that she "could not move openly now" remained buried under Ian's pleasure and came to the surface again the next morning.
Alinor had left the bed quietly soon after a predawn bout of lovemaking. Ian, expecting that she had gone to relieve herself and would soon return, slid off into sleep again. He slept heavily for a little while, but as the effect of his immediate exertions passed, he drifted upward toward consciousness. It did not take much rest to restore him. He was a strong man, accustomed to hard physical labor, and if anything, he had been too much rested in the past few weeks. Alinor's voice, low but not unclear, brought Ian to full wakefulness. His first reaction was an intense anxiety that almost brought him up and out of bed at once. A second woman's voice dispelled that impulse. Ian lay quiet, because he was still a

 
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